'Juju has good questions, bad answers'

Special Features / 9 July 2014, 2:30pm

Richard Davies

Cape Town - 140618 - Pictured is the EFF's Julius Malema. The State of the Nation Debate started today and will continue tomorrow as parties debate the address the President made the evening before. Picture: David Ritchie (083 652 4951)

Cape Town - EFF chief Julius Malema asks good questions, but his answers are bad, DA parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane said on Wednesday.

There were also some “significant hypocrisies” in the way Malema represented the constituency that put the Economic Freedom Fighters in Parliament, he told a Cape Town Press Club meeting.

Maimane was responding to an observation that he appeared to have struck up a “good relationship” with Malema in the National Assembly, and a question on whether he liked him.

“Julius Malema has an interesting constituency that he wants to claim to be voice for. I'm fascinated without fail that even within that constituency there are very significant hypocrisies put into that.

“Because Julius Malema wants to preach to be the voice of the poor and live the most lavish life you can find. It's a bit like wearing overalls and then underneath that having Louis Vuitton.”

Maimane said the EFF faced an “interesting” future in the short term.

“I think the EFF faces a very interesting dynamic in the next number of months. He 1/8Malema 3/8 has already fired a few people from his own party who don't agree with him.”

Maimane said good governance required good institutions, and individuals had to be subject to such institutions.

“The EFF must decide how they're going to build that institutional capacity.”

To the question on his relationship with Malema, he responded:

“I treat him the same as any other leader of any other party. We're in a strong competition for votes.”

However, Malema's ideas were unworkable.

“(To) be frank, I think his ideas are unworkable. I think his ideas are populist. I think his questions are good - in that we must ask questions about land - but I think his answers are bad.”

Parliament's job was to legislate solutions that were workable for the future.

“And I'm not convinced that in fact he'll be able to contribute ideas that speak to that.

“It remains to be seen what the EFF is going to do, and whether or not there will be constant reporting about wearing red overalls etc etc. I think there's a lot of hard work to be done, and we've got to get on and do it.”